The Last Cop Out (5 page)
Burke’s lips pulled tight across his teeth. “If you don’t know, telling you won’t make you understand at all. Now, you got one minute to give me a yes or no.”
Actually, they had no choice.
Over coffee at the diner in the next block Bill Long threw Gill a begrudging laugh and shook his head. “Pal, you didn’t say it, but you sure made them do it.”
“Do what?”
“Piss up a stick,” he said.
3
The pair in the anteroom made him the minute he pushed the door open and the big guy tried reaching for his throat while he scrambled for his rod and had his nose smashed wide and flat in a crimson splash so fast he never knew what happened. The other wasn’t so lucky because his gun was showing and Gill Burke broke his arm before almost splitting him open with a single, terrible kick up between the legs. The only sound was their twisted bodies thumping to the floor and the heavy breathing of the beautiful brunette behind the desk. It was all too quick for her to absorb, or to remember to scream and she watched wide-eyed while he picked the guns off the floor and let them dangle with one finger through the trigger guards.
He said, “The man inside?”
The brunette nodded, her breath held so deeply in her chest that her breasts almost burst through the sheer fabric of her dress.
“Push the button,” he told her.
There was so much weight in his tone that she couldn’t help herself. One finger found the button, held it down, and while the automatic lock was clicking he went through the door and shut it behind him.
The Frenchman looked up from the papers on his desk, almost frowned, then relaxed with a smile. “Hello Mr. Burke.” His eyes went down to the guns in Gill’s hands. “Are you planning to shoot me again?”
Gill dropped the guns on his desk, pulled a chair over with the toe of his shoe and sat down. “Not today, Frank. Later maybe.”
Frank Verdun fingered the guns, turning them around so they both pointed at Gill. “My boys aren’t very good, are they?”
“Not hardly.”
He slipped the clips of the two automatics, checked the loads, making sure there was a cartridge in each chamber and put them down again in the same position. “They’ll have to get a refresher course, I guess.”
“Teach them better manners. They’ll live longer.”
Verdun’s face took on an amused expression. “You have a lot of nerve, Mr. Burke. I thought you were smarter, but you sure have nerve. Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?”
“Curiosity, Frank. I heard you were having a lot of trouble.”
“Nothing we can’t take care of.”
“You haven’t been doing so good this far.”
“A group like ours always has a few minor problems. It’s to be expected.”
“Horseshit. You’ve lost your key men right here and now it’s spreading out.”
“That shouldn’t make any difference to you. By the way, how did you feel being busted to a private citizen ... and marked lousy at that?”
“Part of the game, Frank. It wasn’t entirely unexpected, so call it a minor annoyance.”
“Now it’s my turn to say horseshit.”
The two of them smiled at each other like a pair of male cats about to cut loose over territorial rights. The claws and teeth were sharp and ready and all that was needed was the slightest move on either’s part to unleash a deadly slash. There was mutual respect, but no fear at all.
“You didn’t say what you wanted, Mr. Burke.”
“Just to let you know I’m still around.”
Frank Verdun nodded sagely, his eyes half-lidded. “Are you trying to tell me you’re looking for a job on our side?”
“Hell no, Frank. I just wanted you to know I’ll bust you guys wide open any chance I get and right now there’s a great big chink in your armor plate. Whenever Papa Menes sends in his biggest gun he’s running scared and I’m going to be climbing his ass all the way.”
The Frenchman didn’t bother to glance down at the pair of automatics. His hand hovered over the nearest one and he was almost ready to do what he was about to say. “I could kill you right now, Burke. I have the perfect excuse. All it would cost me would be a day in court.”
“Not quite,” Gill said. He lifted the hat off his lap and the .45 in his fist was pointing directly at the bridge of the Frenchman’s nose.
Verdun chuckled and sat back, lacing his fingers behind his head. “I didn’t figure you being that sneaky, not being a cop any more. You know what would happen if you knocked me off?”
“That’s your second mistake, Frankie boy.” He reached in his pocket and flipped open the wallet so the Frenchman could see the badge. “Times change.”
The snakelike eyes half closed again. “Don’t try to sucker me, Burke.”
“It’s for real, Frankie,” Gill told him. “I wanted you to know so you can think about what’s going to happen.” He put the wallet back, lowered the hammer on the .45, stood up and walked to the door. “Just like the good old days, Frank, only now the stakes are higher.”
The two hoods on the floor in the outer office had messed up the rug with their own blood and vomit and were making forced mewing noises as the pain tingled their minds back to consciousness. The brunette stood over the one with the broken arm, her lower lip clenched between her teeth, trying to keep from retching.
She was taller than he expected, touched with a light tan, a body made to tease or please, yet carrying an aura of class that was just a little out of place around Frank Verdun. The Frenchman had his own peculiar tastes, he remembered, and she wasn’t the type at all. He looked at her again, frowning, then took her raincoat and hat from the rack, put his hand through her arm and led her outside.
There was no resistance. She followed him blankly until they reached the ladies room, then she said, “Please ...” and he let her go in and waited. Five minutes later she was back, her eyes moist and reddened, a taut look around the comers of her mouth.
“Let’s get some fresh air,” Gill told her.
She nodded, slipped into her coat and they stepped into the elevator. He walked her down four blocks, then turned into a grill just off the corner of Sixth Avenue and led her to a booth in the rear. “Iced tea for the lady and a beer for me,” he told the waiter.
“Iced tea?”
“It’s easy to make.” He smiled funny and the waiter nodded and hurried away. When he came back he laid the two drinks down and took the pair of singles Gill held out.
When she finished half the iced tea she took a deep breath and leaned against the back of the booth with her eyes closed. “That was terrible back there,” she said with a husky voice.
Gill said, “I’ve seen it a lot rougher, Helen.”
Her eyes came open slowly. “How do you know me?”
“I was in court when you were a witness for the defense in Scobi’s trial. If you hadn’t testified, that stinking little creep would have wound up on death row. Why’d you do it, kid?”
She gave him a tired little smile. “Because it was true. He
was
with me.”
was
with me.”
“Lennie Scobi was a punk hit man for the mob.”
“And that night he barged into my room totally drunk and passed out on my bed.”
“Nobody believed it, but they had to take your word for it.”
“That’s right, and I never worked again after that, did I? No more night clubs, no more Broadway. Just a receptionist-typist-hostess in a big, impersonal office building.”
“You know who you work for?”
“Of course. At least they showed a little gratitude.”
“Your father was a cop, Helen. Joe Scanlon was a great cop.”
“My father is a dead cop.”
“You know how he died?”
“I know how they say he died,” she told him bitterly. “You know how much gratitude the public showed afterward.”
“He knew the odds.”
“But he didn’t have to live with them afterward.”
“Nobody has it easy.”
Helen Scanlon shook her head slightly, then looked into his eyes. “And you ... who are you?”
“Gill Burke.”
She let the name pass through her mind, then her face tightened. “Aren’t you the one ...”
Gill didn’t let her finish. “The same.”
“Then what you did up there was, was ...”
“All in the line of duty, Helen. It seems like I’m needed again and when the need hits certain people they don’t care what they have to do to fulfill it, even to swallowing their own pride.”
“You just left them lying there!”
“They’re lucky I didn’t kill them. I was feeling generous today. Your Mr. Verdun will clean up the mess, give them a few rough lessons on how to bodyguard his precious person and forget all about it. We had a nice long talk, and if he isn’t sore about it, don’t you be.”
Her face was expressionless, but the tendons in her neck were taut against her flesh. “Thank you for the iced tea,” she said and stood up. Gill went to rise, but she shook her head. “Don’t bother. I’d rather go back alone.” She hesitated a moment, then looked back at him again. “I’m glad I don’t have to know you, Mr. Burke. There’s something indecent about people who don’t care which side of the fence they’re on as long as they can hurt other people. As a policeman, even one disowned by his own kind, you might have had something I could admire, but for a turncoat, you’re as repulsive as a skinless rat.”
He reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Turncoat?”
“You heard me.” She drew her hand away, her eyes still hot with anger.”
Gill Burke let out a quiet, sardonic laugh and picked up his beer. “Hardly likely, baby,” he said.
On the way back to the office she kept remembering his laugh and the straight line of his teeth. There had been something funny about his eyes, too, something hot behind the icy veil that filmed them and she could still feel the way his fingers had circled her wrist. A shudder ran down her spine and she took a deep breath, idly wondering whether or not somebody would have cleaned up the public relations office annex of Boyer-Reston, Incorporated.
At the post office in Homestead, Florida, Artie Meeker picked up the single letter addressed to Mr. John Brill, care of general delivery, got in the two-year-old blue Ford sedan and drove back to the small cottage on the south end of Plantation Key. He parked, carried in the carton of groceries, handed Papa Menes the letter and went back to the kitchen to make a lunch for the two of them.
In the shade of the porch the old man stopped watching the sports fishermen in the gulf pulling in the thrashing dolphin and ran his finger under the flap of the envelope.
Ordinarily, the Frenchman would take care of details himself, but this one he wanted Papa to know about. That former cop who had raised so much hell had been poking around. Somehow he had come up with a badge and it was a good guess that despite his past record, somebody needed an old time heavy hand and talked him into the job. In a way, it could be a good thing to have the public authorities pushing the hunt for whoever was pulling the raid, but if Papa didn’t like the smell of this particular authority because he was close to breaking them the last time, it could be taken care of on order.
Papa Menes didn’t like the smell of it at all. Even less, he didn’t like the smell of having to take care of anybody carrying a badge. Cops were funny people, loyal to their own. That crazy man Burke hadn’t been a bad cop. He had been too damn good a cop and had to be squeezed out. Maybe the public thought he was a rotten apple, but all the other cops knew better and even on the outside Burke would be one of their kind. But with a badge again it was different ... he was one of
them.
them.
Maybe the Frenchman was right, he thought. If his assignment was to nail the hit men and whoever was behind the mess, let him do his snooping. Little Richard would know everything that went on and if Burke wound up with something the organization could always beat him to it or take it away before he could use it.
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